Sot and Kaberline run as fast as they can towards the source of the chaos, which happens to be the cafeteria/nuclear bunker. Standing on a blood red table in the center of the space is a spectral figure, surrounded in a tornado of black feathers. The cawing is so loud it's deafening.
“Hey!” Sot shouts, sliding her stapler/sub-machine gun out of her back pocket. “Release the birds!” The figure turns to reveal the smiling face of Julian Bartholomee. His shadowed face outlines the evil curl of his lips. He flips his wrist and a way word fowl goes careening into Sot, stealing the weapon before she can fire a shot. Kaberline lifts his hands as if in prayer and begins whispering some of the collected works of Lord Byron he had committed to memory. Another black missile goes careening into his head, shattering his glasses/scrying-lenses and he collapses onto the ground, unconscious.
“Welcome, Sotiropoulos. So glad you could come to see me. Don’t you think the students look much more fashionable this way?” He begins laughing maniacally.
“How are you doing this?! This is much more power then any member of the society of crows possess. Kaberline said he never taught any of you transformation magic!”
“He didn’t, the fool.” Julian glances down at Kaberline’s unconscious body with scorn in his eyes. “He was weak. We would have never risen to prominence if he was allowed to continue with his dull instruction. We would have been nothing.” Julian slips something out of the inside of his robe. He raises it in the air, a deep black obsidian stone that sparkles in the sunlight. The crows begin to caw more loudly, flying faster. “I found an instrument of grand power, one of a half dozen transformation tools on the planet!”
“How! Where could you find something like that?!”
“On my trip to Antarctica! I sold my soul to a man who was also a polar bear!” Julian lifts the stone towards Sot and suddenly she feels a terrible pain. Her skin begins to bubble and she sees her life flash before her eyes. She begins to pray to Poseidon when she notices something out of the corner of her eye.
A new crow, but three feet tall, flies into the room and lands at her feet. The figure twists and elongates like candle wax until it reveals the figure of Michael Burns, clothed in a boa of black feathers. “YOU!” Julian screams, “YOU ABANDONED US! WHY DO YOU RETURN!”
“I heard the pained screams of my brothers and sisters and I had to fly back.” Michael’s voice is calm, even, but tinged with sadness and remorse.
“You left us the moment you graduated. You were our king!”
“I went to the black forest to study the true art of the crow. I’m so sorry, my old friend. But it was always my intention to return, to lead us into the light. Stop this madness. Please, Julian. It isn’t too late to turn back from this path.”
“I will never stop! I will not rest until the entire planet is one with the great Crow!” Julian flings his hands forward. The crows amass into a great column, a spear of darkness. Burns raises his hand and they stop in midair.
“You have an instrument of great power, but you are too young and too ignorant to know how to use it. I’m sorry, my child. But I did warn you.” He bends his ring finger and the crows leap backwards, descending on Julian. He lets out a guttural scream before he disappears from view. A few seconds pass and they scatter, revealing nothing left but a torn uniform.
---
Sot and Burns walk across the beach along the Severn. “Thank you.”
“Do not thank me,” Burns whispers, “I am only sorry we couldn’t have saved him.” He hands Sot the stone, glowing and pulsing with a cold warmth. “You must throw it into the river. It is too great a power for any man to have.”
“You can stay with us. Guard it. Teach them the art of the Crow.”
Burns smiles. “I still have much training to undergo. The stone shall corrupt me.”
Shaking her head, Sot throws the cursed object into the water. They walk away.
---
A bald head wearing a pink and green snorkeling mask erupts from the murky, midnight waters. A pale hand rises with it, holding a stone, sparkling in the moonlight. Gvozden chuckles.
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